Children of Magic
by Ralena
Summary: It is a rewritten ending of The Last Rune series. Earth is destroyed, but Eldh and its magic live on. Welcome back your favorite characters; Travis, Grace, and all the others.


Disclaimer: All of the characters, places, and theories are of course Mark Anthony's from _The Last Rune_ series. The first paragraph in italics is from _The First Stone_ pg. 498.

Explanation: After reading _The Last Rune _series, I was disappointed with the ending, so I decided to make up my own!

_The melded vision of Earth and Eldh vanished, replaced by darknesspure, flawless darkness, stretching into eternity. It was like a primordial vacuum, the empty space that constantly spawns pairs of virtual particles. It was nothingness in whose very emptiness lay coiled the potential for everything. It was the silence before the word, the slumber before the dream._

There was a deafening _crack_! Travis looked around in the pitch blackness, trying to see what was happening. His mind raced, what was going on? "Nim!" he shouted. There was no response. The crack sounded again. It reminded Travis of the Rocky Mountains when the lightening stuck too close. Then he saw it. Like a pin prick of light just above Nim it shown down on her, the Imsari, and the Fateless. Then it began to snake its way through the impenetrable darkness. The light split in two and began to snake in two different directions, faster and faster, the streaking light spun around the darkness, a spider web was forming through the globe of blackness, a spider web of blinding light.

Travis began to see something, something great. It was earth, like the old pictures from a satellite. Next to it was a globe of utter darkness. The Void. He watched as the two worlds drew closer, ever so slowly they inched toward each other. And in an instant it happened. They touched and vanished. Travis tried to close his eyes, to look away from the scene, but couldn't. It was empty, it was nothing.

**2.**

Grace hovered over Travis. "Travis? Are you alright?"

"It's gone."

"We know."

Travis tried to prop himself up on his elbow; Grace pushed him back down.

"Lie still."

Travis croaked the words. "Earth. It's gone, it touched the Void, and they met, and…"

"Became nothing," Grace finished. "Oh Travis, I'm so sorry." She hugged him. Travis shrugged her off and stood up, if a bit shaky.

"Father!" and Nim raced into his arms.

"Nim! Are you alright?"

"Yes, Father I'm perfect. Here Father, I kept them for you." She opened her palms and revealed three perfect stones. One showed a pale white, one a dark green, and the last a fiery red. Travis smiled and picked up the stones. Her felt the familiar rush of power before handing them to Larad to put in the iron box.

The companions looked at one another. Farr was still bleeding from the lip, Vani stood, gazing at the others with golden eyes. Larad looked haggard, yet exhilarated, Beltan was still panting, and Dierdre lay on the floor, finally finding some peace and understanding. A sudden shuffle behind them made them all turn. The Seven of Orú had regained their rightful places in the throne room.

"It is time for us to leave." Vani said; none of them argued.

They walked in silence down the black streets of Morindu. The swaying palms over their head, each of them glancing at the yellow flowers that had crawled up the black walls over three thousand years previous. A sharp intake of breath turned their attention towards Grace.

Grace glanced at them, "Aryn will have her child soon; it's a baby girl." She cast them a smile and they kept walking through the streets of the empty city; the late afternoon sun cast long shadows across the roads, accompanied by the soft tinkle of water from the numerous fountains.

Travis looked over his shoulder, "What happened to the Philosophers?"

It was Farr that answered. "I suppose because they could not call this place home they suffered the same fate as Earth."

They continued to walk in silence past the gardens and stone houses.

"Vani, you are the princess of this town, isn't this your home now?" Travis asked again.

"Yes, I am home, but I must first find my people, and my brother, and together we will lead our people here." Travis sighed.

"Will Nim stay with you?"

"It isn't customary for a _T'gol_ to have a child, but I cannot know if she will stay or not."

They all looked ahead over the black city and into the endless, shimmering desert before them.

Larad spoke what began to cross their minds. "We have no supplies left, how are we going to travel back across the desert?"

"I will lead us back. I have blood enough to summon the Morindari to…"

"The Morindari were destroyed with the Void." Travis retorted.

"I don't think that's true. There must be a second void for Eldh, everything must balance the other out." Grace's everlasting reason won out. "However, you're not spending anymore blood for weeks; you've lost too much leading us here." Again, there was no arguing this statement.

"That still doesn't solve our problem. We're stuck in an empty city with no way back to real civilization." This statement from Larad won a stinging look from Vani, but he ignored it.

"I could do it." Travis thought about it a while longer, "yeah, I could do it." Travis had used his power for good and bad; but he had saved Nim's life, and he could help them again. "Let's make for the edge of the city."

When they reached the desert, Travis drew his Malachorian stiletto. Drawing a stream of blood he called them. Trying to think of a logical location he said "Tarras. Spirit us to Tarras." He bound up his wound as his skin began to glow. There was a humming as the spirits gathered, and the next thing they knew they were in the center of the wreckage of the Etherion.

Travis staggered from exhaustion and sat, breathing heavily.

"My Father is a very powerful sorcerer." Travis heard Nim say to Vani.

"Yes, he is."

"I have never known such a feat could be completed, but then, you had a little help in the matter from a god king, didn't you Travis?" Hadrien's words stung Travis like a _feyadrim_ bite.

"Look, if you'd rather be left in the desert, we can arrange that. Because if it wasn't for that god king, we'd die crossing the desert!"

"You have no knowledge of the Morindari, stop pretending."

Grace stepped between the two men. Guards, who had been circling the rubble, reached them.

"How did you come to be here? You are not friends of the Emperor. Get out."

Grace stood regally in front of the man and flashed her old imperial ring. "Actually, I am a friend of the Emperor. And you may carry on with your work." Instantly the guards dropped to one knee around them. Grace walked past the guards, the others in tow, and Hadrian followed last, glaring at Travis as they made there way towards the palace.


End file.
